


Always angry

by belmanoir



Series: Flying from the blast [10]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, background Tony/Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-07-14
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Tony is trying to get S.H.I.E.L.D. to release Loki (or at least give him a TV), Bruce is mostly waiting in the lobby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always angry

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Sonia.
> 
>  **Warnings:** suicidal thoughts.

**Day 1.**

"Meet me at S.H.I.E.L.D. Central," Tony says when Bruce answers his phone. "They've officially got Loki and as we all recall, Nick Fury isn't morally opposed to a little torture."

He sounds wound up. Bruce can feel a headache coming on. He could have told Loki that turning yourself in to S.H.I.E.L.D. is never your best option, no matter how guilty you feel. He doesn't want to go. Who knows what new anti-Hulk measures they've come up with in the last six months? He doesn't know what happened to Loki's anger spear after the battle. He suspects S.H.I.E.L.D. has it, and he doesn't want to find out for sure. "I'll be right there."

"Thanks," Tony says sincerely, and hangs up.

###

The lobby of S.H.I.E.L.D. Central looks like a fancy doctor's waiting room, right down to the outdated copies of _People_ magazine on the low table. Tony's waiting for him, fidgeting a mile a minute. The suit is nowhere to be seen, which is a relief. Tony's relying on force of personality to get Loki released, rather than force. For the moment.

"Glad you could make it," he says, talking a little faster than usual. "Fury hasn't brought out the thumbscrews yet. Maybe he's having them shipped. I just need you to come down and talk to Fury because for some reason he isn't taking me seriously. Did you bring anything to eat with you? I don't really trust the food here, they probably test experimental drugs in the cafeteria."

Bruce can already feel his blood pressure going up. He grimaces. "Yeah...I don't think that's such a good idea. I'll just wait for you here."

" _Bruce._ " Tony puts a hand on his arm and starts tugging him towards the elevators.

Bruce is not getting in a S.H.I.E.L.D. elevator unless he has to. "Fury doesn't care what I think," he says. "I'm just as useful to you in the lobby as I am in there."

Tony stops and looks at him, chewing on his lip and strategizing. It's actually kind of sweet that he wanted Bruce to talk to Fury. Bruce assumed he was Tony's ace in the hole: show up, stand around, make the statement that S.H.I.E.L.D. has a lot of things, but they don't have a Hulk. He can see Tony belatedly figuring that out now. He nods, smiles, and claps Bruce on the back. "Okay, you just wait for me here. I'll be right back."

He's gone for five hours. He's probably talking for four and three-quarters of them. Bruce wonders if his throat ever gets sore. Maybe Bruce should pick up some lozenges when he steps out for dinner.

Thor storms in just as the sun is setting outside. A security guard tries to stop him from going through the metal detector. Thor tosses him aside and strides out of sight. Bruce hears shouting for a while after that. He thinks it might be coming from under the floor. Thor has a loud voice.

Pepper shows up carrying three catered boxed meals just as Bruce's stomach is beginning to rumble. She hands one to Bruce. "How are you holding up?"

"Fine," he says, biting into a tarragon chicken sandwich. "Tony's downstairs. So is Thor."

Tony marches in. Pepper must have texted him she was here. "I'm holding a press conference," he says. "If everyone knows they have him, at least he can't conveniently die in prison."

Pepper makes a face, and Bruce gets a feeling this isn't going to end well.

 

**Day 2.**

"You don't need a press conference," Pepper says. "Just pick a few candids of the two of you together and send a short statement to our guy at the _Times._ They'll print it." She told Bruce once that a public connection between Tony and Loki would be a PR disaster, given that Stark Industries got several lucrative energy contracts in the rebuilding of New York. She doesn't say a word about that now.

"I want the front page," Tony says. 

"They'll give it the front page," Pepper tells him. "Loki's big news."

Bruce doesn't think it's really about strategy. Tony wants to feel like he's doing something.

Pepper refuses to go. "If I'm there, it will look like this is an official Stark Industries policy instead of part of your personal life. Good luck." She kisses Tony and goes to work. 

Bruce hasn't reached Pepper's Zen attitude about Tony's fuck-ups yet. Somebody's got to make sure Loki doesn't get torpedoed in all the drama. So he sits in a little room watching the conference on closed-circuit TV, trying not to be angry at Pepper for abandoning him. It's already a disaster five minutes in.

"How do you respond to allegations that you're supporting Loki because the two of you have a sexual relationship?" a blond woman in the front row asks.

Tony grins at her. It's not a nice grin. Bruce's heart sinks. "Well, Christine, I guess I'd say, one, that it's none of your business, and two, that it's irrelevant either way. As you know, I'm perfectly capable of fucking someone and still not caring whether they get run over by a bus. Or a train, I'm not picky. Any other questions?" 

Bruce winces. Is Tony drunk?

Christine doesn't react. "There's a leaked memo that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been given the authority to summarily execute war criminals it deems too dangerous to hold," she says. "Can you comment on that?"

Tony shoots finger guns at her, his smile widening. "I _can_ , as a matter of fact. I can comment that over my dead body--"

Bruce gets up and heads into the other room. It only takes a second to unplug Tony's mic. He shuffles out on stage. "Sorry, folks, technical difficulties." 

"Hey, it's the Hulk!" someone shouts. They start calling out questions. ("How does it feel to go from monster to hero?" "Are you going to pay the city any damages for the property you destroyed?" "Are you seeing anyone?") His anger spikes, but manageably. He smiles unconvincingly and waves. Tony lets Bruce lead him off the stage without too much struggle.

"You can't announce your intention to commit a crime on national television," Bruce says.

"Oops," Tony says, not sounding sorry at all. "I just did."

Bruce sighs.

###

Thor is in the waiting room with Bruce today. He spends most of the time trying to call his hammer. 

"I'm sure you could talk them into letting you see Loki," Bruce offers, but Thor just makes shifty eyes and doesn't answer. Nicole shows up to see Loki, and spends some time sitting on the curb outside with Thor. 

Bruce does as much of the crossword puzzle as he can in every _People_ magazine, since Tony took his Vonnegut novels to give to Loki as part of the random assortment of paperbacks he dug up around the Tower. _They won't give him a TV, just buy them again for your tablet,_ he told Bruce, ignoring the many, many times Bruce has explained he doesn't like reading on his tablet.

Agent Coulson somehow manages to be in the lobby at dinner time when Pepper stops by with the food. The two of them chit-chat about the best place to take a date in Chinatown and the latest episode of _Parks and Recreation_. Bruce's unease is growing.

No. Bruce's irritation is growing. He lets it build a little, then reins it in. Practice.

At eight o'clock--Bruce has been reading _People_ magazine for seven hours--Tony storms out. "I'm calling Steve." He walks right past Bruce to the revolving glass door and outside. Bruce clenches his jaw, takes in a deep breath, and relaxes his muscles. He stands up and follows Tony outside, because he can't imagine Steve is going to be too eager to wade in on Loki's side.

Sure enough, he and Tony are already arguing. "None of us exactly have clean hands. Oh wait, I forgot, except for you...In the 21st century we call that 'thinking with your dick' and I'm not, actually...Enlighten me, Mr. Moral Fiber, why is it so impossible to imagine that I could fuck somebody _and_ think they deserve a second chance?...Did the serum create an entire extra organ that produces self-righteousness?"

"This isn't helping Loki," Bruce says quietly.

"Thor and I would have _your_ back if it was somebody you cared about," Tony tells Steve, and there's the crux of it. "Just because you don't _have_ \--"

Bruce plucks the phone out of his hand before he can finish the sentence. "Hey, Steve."

"Bruce," Steve says politely through his teeth.

"Sorry about that. Tony's had a rough day."

"I saw," Steve says, disapproval dripping from every word. 

Bruce closes his eyes for a second. How much of that press conference aired? "Yeah, I think everybody did." Tony tries to snatch the phone back. Bruce has an intense and deeply upsetting urge to punch him in the mouth. He needs to get out of here. "I think you should come down and talk to Loki."

"I'm sure he's a smooth talker," Steve says.

Bruce presses his lips together in the shape of a smile. "Yeah. I gotta go. Take care of yourself." He hangs up.

"Christine called," Tony said. "She wants to interview you. You could be the next big thing." His eyes light up as he realizes the double meaning in what he just said. Bruce's hand tightens on the phone. 

"I need a minute," he says, hands the phone gently back, and walks away.

He walks in Central Park for a long time. The great gray stones jutting out of the ground make him feel bizarrely envious.

When he gets back to the Tower, Thor is there. He doesn't begrudge the guy--Thor's having a rough week, and he's got nowhere else to go. It was nice of Tony to bring him. 

He and Tony are both drunk, sharing anecdotes about unpleasant pranks played on them by Loki and laughing affectionately. Bruce has never understood what's funny about embarrassing and humiliating another person. He goes to bed early.

 

**Day 3.**

Pepper brings lunch for Thor too. Actually, she brings four lunches for Thor. He's so distraught he can only swallow three of them. Around two o'clock, Clint and Natasha walk in in civvies. Natasha makes amicable small talk with Bruce, but it's obvious all her attention is on Clint. Since Bruce has never heard her make small talk before, he suspects she's doing it so Clint doesn't have to.

Tony walks in. "Thanks for coming, guys. I really appreciate it."

Clint nods. Natasha leans in to whisper something in his ear.

Bruce pulls Tony aside. "You're asking Clint to support Loki?"

Tony makes a _duh, yes_ face. "I'm rallying the team."

"You don't think maybe it'll be hard for Clint to see him?"

"Clint's tough," Tony says. "Clint's hard as nails. He'll be fine."

"Tony."

"He said yes! Look, we need them. They work for S.H.I.E.L.D. They're closer to Fury than we are."

Bruce reminds himself that if it were Clint or Natasha in that holding cell downstairs, Tony would demand that Loki help them any way he could. He still feels angry. 

Reminding himself that _he's_ here even though Loki was the cause of his first incident in a year is supposed to be an argument on Tony's side. But when he thinks it over, he's not sure it is.

 

**Day 4.**

Nicole says something to Thor, and he goes downstairs. He doesn't come back up. Bruce reads academic journals on his tablet alone in the lobby. At least half the diagrams don't display properly. He doesn't understand why. LaTeX is a standard format.

That evening Tony has another fight with Steve, this time on speakerphone so Bruce and Pepper can hear both sides. Bruce thinks this is intended to get them to sympathize with him over how unreasonable Steve is being. Steve is actually extremely reasonable for about two and a half minutes (an impressive showing, in Bruce's opinion). The conversation deteriorates after that.

"...Right, because the only way to fight Nazis is to join the army," Tony says. "My dad wasn't in the army, and he--"

"He invented the atom bomb?" Steve says nastily.

Tony's face sets. "Well maybe if you hadn't gone and nobly gotten yourself frozen, he wouldn't have had to!"

It's Pepper who takes the phone away this time, with a glare at Tony that has Bruce squirming. "Hey, Steve," she says. "I'm really sorry." Tony reaches for the phone. She raises her eyebrows at him, and he drops his hand. 

Bruce grits his teeth. Tony doesn't even seem to notice when Bruce is annoyed with him half the time. 

"Yeah, I know," she says, switching speakerphone off. "It was an awful thing to say. It's just that Tony went through some pretty big changes in his life a while back, and it really meant a lot to him that there were people that had faith in him. He wants to be that person for Loki." She wanders into the next room, talking in a low voice.

"She's good," Tony says.

Bruce nods.

Tony goes back to scanning hacked S.H.I.E.L.D. security footage of Loki's interrogations. Bruce knows it's wrong, but he doesn't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. either.

"They have to be taping this," Tony says. "Where are they hiding the sound files?"

Listening to Loki too seems unfair. "Tony."

Tony freezes in the middle of his sigh, his gaze riveted on the tablet. His lips part. He rewinds and watches something again. He's forgotten Bruce is there.

"Tony?"

Tony shakes his head. "We're going to S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Right now?" A shameful part of Bruce thinks that even if they're torturing Loki a little bit, it could probably wait until morning. He's tired.

Tony passes the tablet over, tight-lipped. "Prepare to be angry."

It's frozen on a perfectly ordinary black-and-white shot of Loki sitting at a table. His chained hands rest folded on the tabletop. Agent Coulson sits across from him with a legal pad and a pen. Bruce takes a deep breath and presses _play_. 

And Loki starts to transform into a monster. His features wash over with color first--it's just a different shade of gray on the screen, but in Bruce's imagination, it's green. Then a pattern of deep grooves appears on his face. His features bulge and shift, his hair molding to his head.

Bruce is shaking.

Loki puts a hand on the table and it ices over.

Bruce hands the tablet back to Tony before he breaks it. He doesn't remember standing up. "Let's go."

Pepper wants to go with them, but that's one of the worst ideas Bruce has ever heard. "Start looking into how we structure the lawsuit," Tony tells her. 

She nods and squeezes his hand. "He'll be okay." She looks at Bruce. "How are you?"

Bruce pastes a smile on his face. "I'm fine." His mind is racing furiously. Could S.H.I.E.L.D. really be stupid enough to try again? And could they be stupid enough to use an unstable killer as an experimental subject?

Tony suits up while they're waiting for the car. "I'd fly us there," he says, "but I couldn't fly both of you back if I needed to." 

###

"Should we call Clint and Natasha?" Bruce asks when they're in the car on their way to S.H.I.E.L.D. Central.

Tony shakes his head like he's already thought about it. They both know Clint and Natasha work for S.H.I.E.L.D. Maybe they already know about this. Maybe they're standing by in case the newest failure needs to be put down. "Let's just hope he's invulnerable too," Tony says.

Bruce knows he shouldn't say it but he does anyway. "I don't know that we should be hoping for that."

The mask unfolds away from Tony's face. He turns on Bruce, eyes hard. "Yes. Yes we should. And by the way, I'm sick of your self-pitying bullshit."

Bruce's jaw drops. "I'm sorry?"

"You heard me. If you would rather be dead than living your totally awesome life, I'm sure we could figure out a way to make that happen for you, but the last thing Loki needs right now is someone suggesting he'd be better off killing himself than exploring his cool new powers--"

"You don't give a flying fuck about what Loki needs," Bruce says. Shit. He tries to calm down, but he can't. He can feel the Hulk at the edges of his vision and he almost doesn't care. S.H.I.E.L.D. deserves it. 

By the time they pull up in front of Central, they're both talking low and angry. "Loki turned himself in," Bruce says. "How can you not see that?"

"No he didn't! He confided in a friend and the bitch went running to the authorities--"

Bruce wishes he could bore a hole in Tony's skull and pour the truth directly in. "Then why was he still there when Coulson showed up? You gave him hours of warning. He needs to make amends. And if you really want him to want to live you'll let him go through this and get what he needs!"

"Because he really needed the government experimenting on him!"

Bruce doesn't have an answer for that. He slams into the restroom off the lobby and washes his face, trying desperately to bring himself under control. He can't. Fuck it. He walks up to the guard and says, "Take us to Loki."

"I'm sorry, sir--"

Bruce gives him a sheepish smile. "You really want to explain to your boss that you made me ask twice?"

###

Thor talked Coulson into letting him sleep on a cot by Loki's cell. Bruce suspects Coulson realized that if Loki tried anything, Thor would be the most useful person they could have on the scene. When they get downstairs, he and Loki are both awake. They stand as near each other as they can through the glass. "I thought you told me there were only two guards," Bruce says.

Tony looks around at the full squad of men in the room. "There were." He looks at Loki. "Did you agree to this? Why didn't you tell me? I bet they didn't even explain the risks--"

Loki blinks sleepily. "Agree to what?" His hair is mussed. It's the most harmless Bruce has ever seen him look. Something inside him starts to boil. 

Tony holds up the tablet and plays back the tape. Loki goes white as a sheet. Thor fidgets uncomfortably, but doesn't seem unduly disturbed. What is wrong with everyone?

"Believe me," Bruce says, "if you wanted power, this wasn't a good way to get it."

Loki looks at him, still blinking. Then that menacing smile spreads across his face. Bruce has figured out by now it's a nervous tic. "Oh, I see," he says in that deadly purr of his. "You think I'm like you, a man turned into a monster. The difference between us is that I was never a man to begin with."

Bruce can't tell if he's getting taller or if he just feels that way. The walls are closing in and all the S.H.I.E.L.D. guys are looking at him, not Loki. "Are you going to tell me about how you're a god again?"

Loki laughs. "I'm not a god."

"Brother," Thor says. 

It's too late. Loki transforms. He's the gleaming blue of the tesseract. Did S.H.I.E.L.D. get it back? Did they somehow use the spear? "This is who I have always been," he says. His voice resonates weirdly in the room. Bruce can't imagine the voicebox that would make a sound like that. There's a deep metallic echo. Loki puts his hands on the glass and it begins to frost over. If it gets cold enough, it could shatter. Bruce takes a step back.

"My brother was born in Jotunheim, land of the frost giants," Thor says. "But he is _not_ a monster." He puts his hand on the glass over Loki's, his mouth tight with pain at the burn.

Loki pulls the ice back at once, pulls back into himself--into the self they're used to seeing. He's still very, very pale. "Thor--"

Thor doesn't move his hand. "They should not have pried."

Loki looks at Tony. He chuckles, something affectionate at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes look dead. "As well ask a tree to turn from the sun."

"So S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn't been experimenting on you?" Bruce asks. His skin is still crawling with anger, and now that there's nowhere for it to go, he's starting to feel afraid. Fear only speeds the transition. But it's such a small room. The agents in their uniforms would make such a satisfying sound if he flung them against the walls. He wants to see the glass shatter in their smug faces.

Loki shakes his head.

"So you've been Mr. Freeze this whole time, and you never bothered to mention it?" Tony asks.

Bruce grinds his teeth together until it hurts and tries to be amused. "Tony--"

"So you can generate cold?" Tony steps up to the glass. Loki watches him blankly, as if what he's saying is so far removed from whatever Loki's experiencing it might as well be gibberish."That's contrary to all known laws of thermodynamics. Change back, I want to see--"

"We should really be going," Bruce says. He can hear the anger in his own chuckle.

Loki's eyes slide to him. "Disappointed?" he asks. "Were you hoping for a companion?"

And Bruce knows Loki is mean when he's upset. He knows that. But the anger is a great hot wave and suddenly Bruce remembers how Loki watches him, that calculating, frightened, fascinated look. If Loki makes him transform, Bruce will smash him without a thought. If S.H.I.E.L.D. decided this was their chance to get rid of three Avengers and a supervillain with one fell swoop, he'd do it for them. No one needs a shiny spear to control him. 

He's so fucking angry at having to feel this way.

"Don't be mean," Tony says. "So can you control the temperature or is it always too cold to touch?"

"You'd better figure out what you want," Bruce tells Loki, "or Tony will decide for you."

Loki's grin stretches his face. "And what do you want?" 

"I want to stop sitting in that damn waiting room upstairs ten hours a day," he says. "You think there's any kind of absolution S.H.I.E.L.D. can offer you? You think they've got you demonstrating what you can do because they're interested in the state of your soul?"

"And I was accomplishing so much good as a fugitive. We can't all be doctors in Calcutta. Tell me, do you even have a medical license?"

Bruce's eyeballs feel like they're melting with rage.

"Okay, everybody, it's been grand but it's past our bedtime," Tony says, for the first time in days focusing entirely on Bruce. He puts a hand on Bruce's elbow, and when Bruce turns his head sharply to look at him, every person in the room draws back except for Tony, who tightens his grip. Anyone else would have Bruce trying to get away. He leans into Tony and lets him shepherd him out. "Sorry to wake you all, back in the morning, Loki I want you to know I love and accept you just the way you are even though I wish the way you are didn't involve quite so much lying." Tony has absolutely no sense of self-preservation and Bruce desperately hopes he doesn't hurt him. He's shaking and hot and keeping his hands limp takes everything he's got. The cool night air should calm him but it doesn't, it's like fingernails on his skin. He watches Tony take the suit off and put it in the car. 

The reaction is hitting him now. The shaking isn't just anger anymore. That was too close.

"I can't live like this," he says.

Tony presses a kiss to the side of his neck and _that_ makes him angry like a drop of hot syrup on his skin. "Just tell me what you want," Tony says. "Tell me what would make you happy and we'll get it."

Bruce starts laughing. He can't even imagine being happy. Not every day. He doesn't think Tony can either.

Tony's never looked scared of him before. He looks scared now. "I'm not helping you kill yourself."

Bruce shakes his head and pulls Tony against him. "Did I ask?" His skin is still crawling, and he can't tell if it's just a feeling or the other guy trying to get out. "Please," he mumbles, not even sure what he's asking for, and kisses Tony.

Tony kisses him back. Everyone else just wants to get as far away as they can and Tony is pressed up against him like he'd climb right inside if he could. "Anything," Tony says shakily against his mouth. "Anything. Except I'm a little wound up, if you want me to stop talking you're going to have to gag me, or I could blow you. You want me to blow you?"

Bruce tugs Tony around the corner where his driver can't see them and kisses him again, sucks on his tongue and Tony moans and digs his fingers into Bruce's arms and still talks, sounding like he's at the dentist. Bruce can't even understand what he's saying.

Bruce wanted Tony from the moment he saw him, from the moment he heard his voice, wished so hard he was normal so he could ask Tony on a coffee date, coauthor papers with him, have a normal relationship. In Bruce's fantasies, he liked vanilla lattes and wore tweed jackets with leather patches at the elbow. And in his fantasies, Tony still let him down gently about half the time. He can't believe he has this, that genius billionaire playboy philanthropist Tony Stark is humping his leg and lacing their fingers tightly together and talking earnestly in his ear like a teenager in love for the first time.

"If we got matching tattoos would it still show up when you Hulked out?" Tony says, and Bruce laughs again, a normal laugh this time.

"You want to get matching tattoos now?"

"What kind of question is that? I always want to get matching tattoos, but all the people I'd get them with are huge squares."

Bruce slides his hand underneath Tony's shirt to his warm, smooth stomach. "What would they be of?"

"I made a list once," Tony says. "My first choice, obviously, would be 'Property of Tony Stark' right across your ass. But I was also thinking you could get an arc reactor here with glow-in-the-dark ink." He unbuttons Bruce's shirt and puts his hand over Bruce's heart. Bruce looks around. There's no one out. He rubs Tony through his slacks. "Or I could get a little Fe superscript 26," Tony continues unsteadily, "and you could get a gamma. Maybe here." He sucks at the inside of Bruce's wrist. The hot crawling feeling is almost gone now, replaced by fluttery warm lust. "But of course everyone would see yours so I knew you'd want something tasteful. Like a little butterfly right here." He traces his finger in a circle on the small of Bruce's back.

"I don't think I can do this in public," Bruce says.

Tony sighs. "Squares."

And Bruce can't live like this. He was angry tonight, sure. That's not the problem. He's always angry. The problem is that he's always angry at _Tony_. But he keeps bottling it up because he's afraid that once he opens the lid he won't be able to put it back on, more and more small resentments rising to the surface and rushing out his mouth until the most important thing in the world isn't love or kindness or anything except making Tony shut up and _listen_ , and then he's the Hulk and Tony is...

 _And Tony is dead,_ he makes himself think, and the fear is so intense that for a second he thinks he might transform after all.

He really doesn't want to be this angry at Tony, because even though he'd never do it, getting _Property of Tony Stark_ tattooed on his ass doesn't actually _feel_ like the worst idea he's ever heard. 

 

**Day 5.**

"Hey, Pepper, can I talk to you for a second?"

She turns a warm smile on him immediately. "Sure, Bruce. What's up?"

"I want to do an interview. Tony said Christine from _Vanity Fair_ was interested."

Her eyebrows go up. "She's a very good journalist," she says, somehow making it sound like _She eats puppies for fun._ "She did a very interesting piece on Tony. Can I ask why you want to do this?"

He chuckles nervously. "Well, Tony's press conference wasn't a big success. But I think--I can talk about what's it like. To be so angry you do terrible things." To not know afterwards whether you did it on purpose or not. Loki's flailing around like a bag of cats dumped in a swimming pool, but Bruce isn't any better, sitting around waiting to be drowned.

She frowns. "Did Tony put you up to this?"

He shakes his head. "I want to actually do something to help. You're a PR expert, I was hoping you'd help me prep for the interview, figure out what to say."

She smiles. "I'd love to. Tell them you want Annie Leibovitz for the pictures." She eyes him critically. "You should wear your glasses."

He smiles awkwardly. "I, uh--there's something else."

"Mmm?" She's already jotting down some notes in her phone.

"I want to practice turning into the Hulk. I had a lot more control when I changed on purpose. Maybe on, like, an island somewhere or something. I want to take Tony with me in case something goes wrong, but it's dangerous. I won't ask him if you don't want me to." He's sweating just thinking about it. He's never, ever turned into the Hulk on purpose when he didn't have to. He tries to look like it's not a big deal. He doesn't want to scare Pepper.

He waits eagerly for her to say it's a bad idea and they shouldn't do it.

She presses her lips together. "I told you, I don't try to keep Tony safe. I know he'll want to help you. He even owns an island that would probably be perfect. The plane could drop you off and pick you up a designated amount of time later." She tucks her hair behind her ear. Her fingers are trembling a little. Bruce thinks about how she'll look if he comes back from the island with Tony's body. "Maybe you could take Loki for backup."

Loki is the last person Bruce wants around when he's the Hulk. He has another plan. "Actually, I'm calling Steve."

 

**Day 6.**

Steve says yes. Bruce knew he would. Steve never saw a wire he didn't want to lie down on. About fifteen awkward minutes into their flight out to Tony's island (Tony owns an _island_ ), Tony gets up. "I need to go talk to the pilot about something." He disappears into the cockpit. There is, for the first time, silence in the cabin. Steve shuts his eyes and slumps in his chair. He doesn't look tired. In fact, he looks as glowing as ever. Bruce wonders if he _can_ look tired. When Bruce called in the middle of the afternoon to ask him to do this, Steve sounded like Bruce had woken him up from a nap.

"How are you doing?" Bruce asks.

Steve opens his eyes. "Fine. How about you? This thing with Loki sounds like it's been rough on you."

Bruce wonders if it's a guess based on Steve's phone calls with Tony, or if someone at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been talking to Steve. "Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that, actually."

Steve's eyes go to the cockpit door. Bruce can see the moment he realizes he's been set up, the intense frustration that passes across his face and disappears. Bruce wonders if he was happier back in his own time. "Look," Steve says, "I really don't want to get involved. I know Tony likes Loki, but to me he's just the guy who smashed up New York City."

Bruce has done a fair amount of New York smashing himself. He wonders if it was meant to be a dig. "Hate the new design for Grand Central?"

Steve laughs perfunctorily. "You got me."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. was using the tesseract to make weapons," Bruce says. "What do you think they'll do with Loki?"

Steve sits up, fully present in the conversation for the first time. "You think he'll make weapons for them?"

Bruce isn't sure on that one. "I didn't say that. But I think he knows how to do things S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't. I think they can learn things from him we don't want them to know."

Steve frowns, thinking. "Things would have been simpler if they stayed in Asgard."

"Yeah. They were torturing him in Asgard, though. You saw how Thor reacted when Fury wanted to torture him. Which is actually my real point. I don't think Fury ever really intended to torture Loki. He just wanted Thor to agree to follow his orders. This isn't about Loki, it's about the team." He laughs self-consciously. "This might sound silly, but...were you ever in a union?" He keeps an expression of mild embarrassment on his face and watches Steve closely.

Steve looks suspicious, which makes Bruce think it's a hit. "My mother was," he says.

"Okay, it's like...Fury is our boss, right? Last time around, we decided what happened to Loki. We stuck together. I think that was a very good precedent to set."

Steve makes a dubious face. "Loki's a killer."

"I'm not actually asking you to back Loki," Bruce says. "I'm just asking you to talk to Loki and talk your decision over with us. We don't have to always agree, but we need to figure out what to do when we don't. Tony said if S.H.I.E.L.D. tries to execute Loki, he'll get in a firefight with them. We need to talk about what you're going to do if S.H.I.E.L.D. calls you in against him. We need to talk about a lot of things, and we need to do it ourselves instead of relying on what Fury tells us."

Steve leans forward, laying his hand on the armrest of his chair as if ready for emphatic finger-tapping. He's in team-leader mode now. Even awkwardly sitting in an airplane seat that's slightly too small for him, it inspires confidence. "But you're backing Loki."

Bruce spreads his hands. "I won't leave the team if you decide not to. I don't think Clint and Natasha will either. Thor and Tony...we might lose them. But yeah...Tony's more than a teammate to me. I'd probably back him in something a lot stupider than this."

Steve looks away, jaw clenching, like he can't stand to look at the expression on Bruce's face. Bruce remembers that feeling, like love was something he'd never get to have again. "Stark barely knows Loki," Steve bites out.

"Tony barely knows me or you," Bruce says. "He's like a puppy, he thinks we're in his pack now. He'd be just as upset if S.H.I.E.L.D. were keeping you in a glass box."

"Do _you_ think he's safe?" He sounds like he's prepared to take Bruce's opinion seriously, which is unexpectedly flattering. 

"I don't know," Bruce says, wondering if he should have lied. "Is anyone safe?" _Besides you,_ he adds silently, because he's been living with Tony for too long.

Steve looks at him. "But you still think the safest course of action is for him to be released."

Bruce nods. "I don't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. And I think Loki's been trying. He turned himself in, that's something."

"He turned himself in before."

Bruce laughs. "Yeah. I don't think there's a master plan this time."

Steve stares out the window for a minute, thinking. While he's doing that, Bruce admits to himself that he really, really wants the team to last. He'd given up on getting what he wanted for a long time. Fighting for it is a lot more stressful.

"Okay," Steve says. "I'll talk to Loki. And I'll come to a team meeting. But that's all I'm promising."

Bruce smiles. "That's good enough for me." He looks at Steve's handsome, heroic face and weirdly, he feels sorry for him. He, Bruce Banner, has something better going on than Captain Fucking America. "You, uh, you want to go out for coffee sometime?"

Steve glances toward the cockpit and obviously casts around for a way to politely get out of it.

"Just you and me," Bruce clarifies. "Not a date, though. I, uh..."

Steve smiles suddenly. Bruce can't tell if it's real, but it transforms his face. He looks about ten years younger. "Sure, why not," he says. "You've got pretty good coffee in the future."


End file.
